My recent topics and interests, Episode 2

(by S. Miyauchi, Professional Engineer, Doctor of Engineering, JSME Fellow)

When Dr. Frank Makowski who was in charge of CFD at Ferrari (Joe Gibbs NASCAR Racing Team at now) took me to the Ferrari garage of Suzuka F1 in 2005, I saw the blade rows for downforce on the F1 car. Since then, I thought the car would fly in the near future. Because I will make a Hovercraft with students at Osaka Institute of Technology (OIT, http://www.oit.ac.jp/english/index.html) from this spring, I want to make a flying hovercraft by ground effect (a kind of wing in ground-effect vehicle, WIG), first of all.

This seminar room is wide (about 20 m × 60 m), and there are also projects of student formula car (Student Formula Japan, http: //www.jsae.or.jp/formula/en/) , solar car and human powered aircraft crossing Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan (http://www.ytv.co.jp/birdman/ ). I think that this student formula car is aerodynamically refined to F1 car of 1995, for example 412 T 2 of Ferrari. The maximum speed is 120 km / h, and the downforce of the front wing is 22.5 kgf. This car also becomes a reference for the design of hovercraft with wings. Thus, although I first met a student in charge of aerodynamics, I immediately asked him for cooperation. I am already feeling the residents of this seminar room. When you come to Japan, I will show you this room.

Many Japanese aircraft manufacturer engineers and aircraft department students entered the car manufacturer after World War II. My mother's cousin, Shin Maki was convinced that Japanese reconstruction and future would depend on industries. Together with his friend of Matsuyama High School (my uncle Ken), he went to Tokyo where tomorrow was not known under hard air raid. And he entered Department of Aeronautical Engineering and my uncle entered Department of Chemistry Engineering at Tokyo Imperial University. After the war, he entered Nissan and was in charge of aerodynamic design of Japan's first full-scale mass production car Blue Bird. His work as a typical Japanese engineer is written in "The Reckoning" written by D. Halberstam is non-fiction book acording to a parallel history of the American and Japanese car industries, using Nissan and Ford Motors as examples. When I was a young dreamer, I longed for him, so I became a fluid engineer. And he also dreamed a flying car as an airplane lover.

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